French soldiers moved from the capital, Bamako, for the
start of what they expect will be “a guerrilla-like conflict,”
Admiral Edouard Guillaud, France’s chief of defense staff, said
yesterday on Europe 1 radio from Paris.

The frontline between insurgents and Mali’s army is
“artificial” and “the result of a balance of forces that we
want to break,” French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told
parliament. The air strikes deep into the north are meant to
“neutralize the terrorists, and degrade their ability to strike
across the country,” he said.

With about 1,700 troops committed to the Mali mission,
including 800 already in the country, President Francois
Hollande said his aim is to destroy or capture the militants who
split the country in two early last year and began moving south
toward the capital last week.

“Our goal is that when we leave, there will be security in
Mali, a legitimate government, and no terrorists threatening the
security of Mali,” Hollande said Jan. 15 in Dubai.

In neighboring Algeria, an al-Qaeda-linked group took
American, Norwegian and British workers hostage in a pre-dawn
attack yesterday on a gas facility in southern Algeria partly
operated by BP Plc.

Militant Demands

A heavily armed group arrived in three vehicles at a
workers’ compound near In Amenas, about 1,300 kilometers (800
miles) southeast of Algiers, and attacked a bus carrying foreign
employees, the Interior Ministry told the Algerian Press
Service. A British citizen was killed and six people were
wounded, according to APS.

The group, calling itself the “Signatories by Blood,” is
demanding that France end its military attacks in Mali,
according to Mauritania’s private ANI news agency.

The rebel offensive in Mali last week prompted thousands of
people to flee to neighboring countries and cities in the south,
according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

ICC Investigation

The International Criminal Court started an investigation
into possible war crimes committed in Mali since January 2012,
The Hague-based organization said yesterday. Prosecutor Fatou
Bensouda said there’s a “reasonable basis” to believe crimes
including rape, murder and torture have been committed.

West African defense chiefs met in Bamako Jan. 15 as
countries including Ghana, Togo, Guinea, Senegal, Burkina Faso,
Benin and Nigeria pledged troops for the mission. Nigeria said
it would send 190 troops within 24 hours, with the remaining 710
soldiers of its contingent arriving next week.

“We want to deploy troops rapidly to support the Malian
troops,” Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara, who is also
the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States,
told reporters in Berlin yesterday. “We want to solve this
military problem as quickly as possible.”

The rebels exploited political instability in Bamako after
a March coup to seize control of the north. While the insurgents
include Islamists such as Ansar ud-Din and al-Qaeda’s north
African unit, there are also ethnic Touareg fighters seeking
greater autonomy in the region.

Criminal Bands

Mali is now led by interim President Dioncounda Traore and
Prime Minister Diango Cissoko, who was appointed last month
after the leader of the coup, Captain Amadou Sanogo, forced
Cheick Modibo Diarra to resign.

The militants number 2,000 to 5,000 fighters, with criminal
bands and drugs smugglers on the fringes, according to a report
from CF2R, a French institute that does research on
intelligence.

The institute says the French have advantages such as a
long history operating in the region, 10 years of experience in
Afghanistan, relative proximity to home, low population density
in the region which lessens civilians casualties, and hostility
of local residents and neighboring countries to the Islamists.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Major-General Shehu
Abdulkadir, the Nigerian head of the West African force, told
reporters. “Once the planning is properly conducted and you
have the logistics support that you require, I believe it’s not
an insurmountable problem.” West African heads of government
will meet Jan. 19 in Abidjan, capital of Ivory Coast.

Kona Abandoned

Malian forces have yet to retake the central town of Kona,
which fell to rebels last week before being abandoned after the
French air strikes, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian
said yesterday.

French aircraft have flown about 50 sorties since their
intervention last week, and strikes are continuing, especially
in the west of the country, he said. Two Dassault Aviation SA F1
Mirages are stationed in Bamako, with six Mirage 2000’s and four
Rafales running missions from Chad, according to the Defense
Ministry.

Algeria has closed its 1,400-kilometer border with Mali and
is allowing French overflights, as is Morocco, Hollande said.

Germany said it will provide transport planes, with the
United Arab Emirates considering humanitarian, material and
financial help. Belgium is sending two transport planes and a
medical helicopter. British transport planes are already
ferrying French equipment to the region.

German Security

“Germany views security in the region also as a part of
its own security, because of course terrorism in Mali, or
northern Mali, isn’t only a threat for Africa, but also a threat
for Europe,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in
Berlin yesterday. “The question was asked how real the threat
is that the terrorists could cross beyond the borders of Mali --
and, yes, that is indeed a real threat.”

Landlocked Mali vies with Tanzania as Africa’s third-biggest gold producer. At least 13 international companies were
engaged in gold exploration and production in Mali in 2010,
according to a U.S. Geological Survey Report. Output of the
metal for the country was 36,344 kilograms the same year.

The country ranks 175th out of 187 nations on the UN Human
Development Index, which measures indicators including literacy,
income and gender equality.

Its $10.6 billion economy contracted 4.5 percent last year
and is forecast to expand 3 percent in 2013, according to the
International Monetary Fund, slower than the sub-Saharan African
outlook of 5.25 percent.

The U.S. and Europe “have a lot on the line,” Gregory
Mann, a Columbia University associate professor of history and
author who focuses on Francophone West Africa, said in phone
interview from Paris. “There is a growing consensus that this
is a much more serious problem than some may have first
thought.”